© El Collie 2000
Chapter 7
LIFTING THE VEIL
"We and the universe are full of unknown, changing dimensions, and no space journey could be as interesting
or as far-reaching as the journey into our own many mansions." -- Dorothy Maclean
"There are no unnatural or supernatural phenomena, only very large gaps in our knowledge of what is natural...
We should strive to fill those gaps of ignorance." -- Edgar Mitchell Apollo 14 Astronaut
The world we are collectively conditioned to uphold as real begins to fluctuate as Kundalini opens doors to hitherto
hidden dimensions. Suddenly we are perceiving and responding to life from a very different vantage point. At
first, our newly awakening faculties and magnified perceptions are disconcerting, even as they fill us with wonder.
The paranormal, mystical and psychic aspects of spiritual awakening are most daunting for those whose prior worldview
excluded the possibility of such phenomena. I have mentioned the mental struggle of rationality-bound thinkers
when confronted with "illogical" experiences. Their dread of insanity is matched by the terror Kundalini
catalyzes for those whose religious training condemned as evil all psychic and paranormal manifestation. When
confronted with evidence that flies in the face of whatever we have believed to be true, we have two choices: (1)
We can deny the reality of our experiences, rejecting the testimony of our mind and senses; or (2) We can re-evaluate
our prior beliefs and learn what we can through direct experience and honest examination of our own heart and soul.
The second choice gives us permission, perhaps for the first time in our lives, to trust in ourselves.
Hypersensitivity
Once the Kundalini has risen, the sensory (and extrasensory) faculties become intensified. Heightened sensitivity
is also frequently reported in the wake of NDE's and other encounters with the extraordinary. Super-sensitivity
results from experiences that leave us psychically wide open. In his autobiography Of Water and the Spirit, the
African shaman Malidoma Some says that those who are newly initiated are "as vulnerable as a sick person who
has passed the most critical stage of his or her illness and is now convalescing." The American healer/shaman
Vicki Noble explains it this way: "Whereas it seems that the skin is the boundary of the person in 'normal'
reality, when that same person opens psychically, the boundary expands. The person feels herself extending out
beyond the body, taking up more space, feeling things in an extrasensory way. What we took for granted as a kind
of density in the physical realm is suddenly called into question on every level."
There was a period in my awakening when for over a span of five or six months, my consciousness soared increasingly
higher, evaporating my ordinary boundaries. Every few days I would find my awareness expanding in unexpected and
often uncomfortable ways. At times, even my body seemed to dissolve in a staggering radiance of omnipresent energy.
I developed hypersensitivity to both physical and mental vibrations. Everything became greatly amplified: colors
were extremely vivid, odors pungent, tastes exquisite and sounds penetrating. As my hearing became more acute,
if someone so much as dropped a pencil in the other room, I jumped as if a door had slammed. Sounds ceased to
have an external quality; instead, every noise seemed to explode somewhere deep inside my brain.
I became painfully sensitive to the coarse and strident mental/subtle-field energy that is generally regarded as normal human output. I found I couldn't tolerate any programs on TV but nature documentaries. Eventually even these became too jarring. As my condition intensified, even if I wasn't watching television myself (and was in another part of the house), if someone else turned it on, I would feel as if psychic shrapnel was exploding out of the TV set. This would jolt me into painful bodily seizures. (Several other people with awakened Kundalini told me they experienced this same progression of intolerance for television "vibes.")
I've always loved to read, but here too, I found myself reacting adversely to anything written from ordinary third chakra consciousness (which covers the majority of printed material). I would feel physical pain (particularly in my solar plexus) when I tried to read these things. At the same time, I craved sacred writings: the Bible, the Upanishads, the yoga sutras, Buddhist texts, Native American and other ancient spiritual teachings, mystical poetry, etc. These scriptures were sustenance for me. At the pinnacle of my altered state, focusing to read anything was impossible. I became sensitized to electric fields and discovered I couldn't be in the vicinity of operating electrical appliances (even a gently humming computer) without feeling electric shocks and disturbances in my aura. When meditating or asleep, this sensitivity was more exaggerated. My psychic and physical energies were so fragile and tenuously balanced at this time that the slightest stimulus would throw me into turmoil. For several months, if Charles so much as brushed his hand against me in our sleep, I would go into painful convulsions. Once, when Charles took a shower, I felt as if the earth's gravitational pull had suddenly increased tenfold. All the energy in my body was draining down to my feet. I couldn't tell if my energy was following the sound of the water flowing in the shower, or if it was being drawn by a magnetic pull from the water itself. Either way, it was a very strange experience.
My psychic antennae grew so acute that I overreacted to the slightest tension in the atmosphere. If anyone in my vicinity was even mildly annoyed or worried about something, I would immediately be overcome by nausea. Other people's thoughts and feelings toward me had a strong psychic impact, even though I was living in almost total seclusion. Before the phone rang, I would know who was calling and the emotional state of the person making the call. Several friends and family members were concerned about me during this time, unable to accept that I was actually having a psychospiritual experience. Their worry sent out waves of fear that hit me like a blunted physical blow in the pit of my stomach. I felt no personal fear, but I did experience gut-wrenching physical distress from this. I could also feel people praying for me. The first time this happened, I became aware of a powerful but wondrous energy washing through the top of my head. Suddenly, though I cannot explain how, I knew this energy was generated by others' prayers. This was profoundly moving to me.
During this tremendously heightened period, I discovered I could detect physical problems in other people by simply scanning their auras with my hands. When I would pass over an area of the body that was injured, I would feel sharp, stabbing sensations in my hand. W. Brugh Joy developed this same ability after his spiritual awakening. Since he was already a MD., he was able to establish and confirm medical diagnoses in this way. I had a remarkable encounter with another psychic during this time. My only contact with this man was via the telephone. As we were talking, I could definitely feel myself being psychically explored. I literally felt something that had a very active and gently probing quality -- the sensation was very much like a little creature scurrying around within my aura (or subtle body). This man told me that my energy was so strong it was causing his body to shake so much he could hardly hold onto the phone receiver. To steady himself, he decided to put up a mental "wall." I didn't directly sense his wall, but I immediately appreciated the result: I was nearly knocked off my chair by tidal waves of my own deflected energy! This was startling but even more astonishing was that the energy boomeranging back to me had a euphoric effect. This was the most literal demonstration I had ever had of my own "good vibes." I was thrilled to be able to feel the reality of psychic forces in this unmistakable way. The man I shared this experience with was equally gratified to find someone of sufficient sensitivity to meet him at this level of consciousness.
A fascinating (and apparently lasting) development from this period of hypersensitivity has also been reported to me by numerous other people. I call it the "truth chills." Whenever something is said that contains wisdom or spiritual veracity, I feel an instant, pleasant shivery sensation. "The soul is the perceiver and revealer of truth," wrote the transcendental philosopher, Ralph Waldo Emerson. "We know the truth when we see it, let skeptic and scoffer say what they choose." And when the soul speaks through the body, we also know the truth when we feel it! During my most sensitive periods, I have to be careful about what I eat. I've discovered that during these times, my system cannot tolerate foods cooked at any restaurant. Ram Dass has said that one of his teachers warned him against eating any cooked food that was not prepared with love, although Ram Dass felt that it was not until one entered the high-vibrational states that the "loveless" energy permeating the food had immediate and harmful effects. (For some people, the hypersensitive condition can somatize as allergies to foods, chemicals, or just about anything else in the environment.)
Going out in public -- especially where there are crowds -- can be an ordeal for someone who is hypersensitive. Temporary agoraphobia (a misnomer which literally translates as fear of open spaces but, in this case, is actually avoidance of psychic bombardment emitting from the general populace) is common among those whose Kundalini is very active. The disturbance has nothing to do with an unbalanced mental/emotional state; it results from the individual's undefended and vastly heightened receptivity to ambient, chaotic energies broadcast by the public. To someone who has never experienced the raw vulnerability of psychic openness, this may seem like a paranoid and hackneyed excuse for shyness or asocial behavior. The fact is that many people who have these psychic-sponge experiences were socially gregarious and extroverted personalities -- in some cases, less fearful than average -- prior to their Kundalini awakening. Stage fright (or fear of public speaking) is the most common phobia reported by otherwise "normal" people, and in my own case, all throughout my twenties and thirties, I thought nothing of doing weekly stage readings of my poetry before large audiences. Yet during my most sensitive times, simply riding in a car through ordinary urban traffic felt like running a gauntlet.
The worst part of being hypersensitive was that I didn't realize it was a temporary phase. I thought I'd have to live at this level of intense sensitivity from then on. This was a frightening idea; I couldn't conceive how I would be able to cope with the world (or how anyone else would long be able to cope with me) in this state. I imagined myself becoming a total recluse for the rest of my life. (Actually, some degree of residual hypersensitivity may be lasting. Swami Muktananda's eyes were so sensitive to light that he had to wear sunglasses much of the time throughout his life. Anne Armstrong, who became a gifted psychic and spiritual teacher after her fifteen year Kundalini awakening, says that more than thirty years later, she remains hypersensitive to sounds.) Although I no longer feel like an exposed nerve, I continue to be exceptionally sensitive, and I still need to protect myself as much as possible from abrasive situations. But I have also found that increased sensitivity is a great gift. I have a much stronger sense of which influences are nourishing or damaging to my own psyche. More wonderfully, being extraordinarily sensitive allows me deeper degrees of intimacy and rapport with other people and living things than I ever dreamed possible.
Lights
Speaking of the Kundalini, Gurumayi Chidvilasananda says, "When this force is awakened, countless suns and
moons are awakened." Someone asked her if he should be visualizing light in his meditations. She replied,
"It is not a matter of visualizing the white light; when the Kundalini is awakened, there is light, an inner
explosion." Gopi Krishna said that the first symptom of his awakening was Inner Light: "It was not as
if I was seeing the light or that I had an inner vision of light. Rather, it seemed as if a stream of liquid light
was entering my brain. It has not disappeared during all these years..."
Literally and symbolically, light is the essence of spiritual awakening. "Among the trillion mysteries of
the cosmos," wrote Yogananda, "the most phenomenal is light." He notes that Einstein's Theory of
Relativity centered around the velocity of light. Yogananda marveled that in a universe in flux, Einstein mathematically
proved "that the velocity of light is, so far as man's finite mind is concerned, the only constant... With
a few strokes of his pen, Einstein banished from the universe every fixed reality except that of light." Likewise,
when Kundalini erupts, light is one of the few fixed realities left unshattered.
During the most intense phase of my awakening, I was dazzled with a spectacular light show every time I closed my eyes. Even with my eyes opened, brilliant flashes of white or colored light appeared in my peripheral vision. These "external" lights were particularly vivid when I was in a darkened room. I went through another phase in which I saw a beautiful, shimmering rainbow whenever I shut my eyes. In Energies of Transformation, Bonnie Greenwell notes Aurobindo's theory that "the appearance of fire [and] lights (either in masses or in symbolic forms)... are commonly seen by most people who follow spiritual practices, and he believed they indicated the movement or action of inner forces." Most of the people I know who are undergoing Kundalini awakenings have mentioned seeing dazzling lights, internal and external. On occasion I see brief, sparkling lights dancing in front of me. Sometimes a vibrant blue pinpoint of light streaks past me -- perhaps what Swami Muktananda referred to as "the blue pearl."
Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield speaks of the visions of light experienced by advanced meditation students (in whom Kundalini has likely risen). Many, he says, "will see very powerful white lights as if looking into the headlight of an oncoming train or as if the whole sky were illumined by a brilliant sun." While different traditions and teachers ascribe various meanings to the appearance of different colored lights, Kornfield notes that most of them "agree that seeing colors is usually the effect of a deep and pure opening of consciousness."
At times, I've seen an aura of golden light radiating from my fingertips. Others see full auras around people and other living beings. Seeing auras or trails of light around living things and so-called inanimate objects are common Kundalini experiences. Some, like Gopi Krishna, see everything magically infused with light. The world may appear to be a transparent film through which blazes a brilliant light as if from a huge shining sun. Various shapes and colors of light may be seen beaming from specific chakra sites, or from all the Chakras. Some of these lights are visible to others as well. Subtle halo lights may appear around awakened individuals, and some people with risen Kundalini have been described as "glowing" by their friends.
Lights are often perceived in the presence of spirit guides or during divine visitations. A woman who was awakened in the middle of the night by the presence of Christ said her whole room lit up and she was filled with ecstasy. She has also seen spirits (some witnessed by others as well) who appear as luminous forms. Those undergoing psychospiritual processes, including near death experiences frequently report seeing beings of light. Extreme transformational experiences of any kind can be accompanied by astonishing lights. Those who have witnessed deaths of loved ones sometimes report a sudden increase in illumination in the room at the moment of death. And when a spiritual master dies, there are often dramatic atmospheric lights witnessed by everyone in the area. At stages in the process, overwhelming or unbearable light may drown everything else, disintegrating the personality. Krishnamurti felt as if he were staring straight into a blazing desert sun with his eyelids cut off. W. Brugh Joy, a physician and spiritual teacher, told of a "superbrilliant light" in which he was held captive for six hours straight. These same phenomena may have been manifest in the story of the sudden conversion of St. Paul, in which "there shined round him a light from heaven" which knocked him prostrate and revealed to him the truth of Christ (Acts 9:3-6). Such experiences reveal to us that, as Kornfield has said, "on one level the mind and body and the whole of consciousness is made of light itself." Holger Kalweit, who has made a global study of shamanism, has noted the universality of mystical experiences of light. In his book Dreamtime Inner Space, he devotes an entire chapter to this subject, concluding that "Figures of light and mystical phenomena of light cannot simply be written off as hallucinations or the result of an overexcitation of the nervous system. Spiritual experiences of light occur after the collapse of the ego structure, after rigorous spiritual practices, intense concentration, and meditation. They are supreme phenomena of deconditioning."
For those of us who have had these experiences, words and phrases such as "enlightenment", "illuminating"
and "I saw the light" are no longer merely poetic or symbolic. Literally as well as figuratively, the
light is dawning upon us. These visions aren't the climactic finale of our spiritual evolution. They are part
of our amazing initiation into higher consciousness. Even if dark passages still lay ahead, the memory of the
brightness cannot be destroyed. We have been brushed by the shining wings of the numinous. The blessing of knowing
we are in, of and with the light lives with us always.
Strange Vibrations
Those undergoing Kundalini awakenings sometimes notice that they seem to acquire a subtle radiance that acts as
a magnet. Strangers are unusually drawn to them. People seem to want to bask in this spiritual energy, even if
they cannot consciously detect it. This phenomena is most evident in the charismatic quality of gurus and spiritual
teachers who are vehicles for vast energy. Others feel uplifted and euphoric in their company.
Paradoxically, these very same "good" vibrations are experienced negatively by certain people. Their own personal energy fields are quickened in the vicinity of the one who is awakening, but this quickening brings up fear instead of tranquillity. These are the people who seem to fly off the handle when they are in contact with us. They may come at us with irrational anger, criticism, judgment and demands. This perplexing polarization, where one is suddenly an object of both adoration and hostility from others, can be extremely difficult. Realizing that others' reactions have far less to do with us, than with what is moving through us (spiritual energy) can help us feel less personally wounded or inflated by these behaviors.
The heightened energy in our systems can effect our non-human contacts as well. Animals may react differently in our presence, being magnetized to us or bolting away from us. A woman going through this electrifying stage told me that her boyfriend got a shock every time he touched her, and her erstwhile mellow-tempered cat's hair stood on end and it bolted away from her whenever she entered the room. She said her hands emitted such static electricity that papers and other small objects on tables would skitter away from her when she reached for them!
I have discovered that plants respond to the active Kundalini also. I frequently sit to write or read in a room by a southern exposure window. There is a philodendron plant on the windowsill, right next to my chair. In all the years I have had this plant, the leaves always grew toward the light coming from the window. But in the winter of the fourth year of my Kundalini awakening, I noticed a most peculiar change. Some of the leaves began to pull away from the window and grow toward me instead. At first I could not believe this was happening, but I had to acknowledge it when they grew so far over that they were nearly pressing against my hair when I sat in my reading chair. I know that when houseplant leaves are not able to get their share of natural light, they reach for a substitute electric light source, but usually these "refugees" quickly turn yellow and die. But the leaves that were leaning in my direction remained very deep green and healthy, although there is very little winter sunlight in this room. This phenomena, which Charles also witnessed, stopped after several weeks... perhaps because its implications were a bit too much for me.
Shakti (the risen Kundalini) frequently interferes with household electricity. I know of several people who called in electricians to check all their home wiring (without finding defects) when this interference caused concern. Lights go dim or may flicker, or blink off and on in the vicinity of the awakening individual. I went through a period where I couldn't touch a light switch without the light bulb instantly burning out. Radio or TV channels may produce static in the presence of such a person. Electrical and mechanical appliances may break down far more frequently. One woman told me she had "burned out" four answering machines in a period of five weeks. There were times when my energy was so strong that if I simply walked into the room where Charles was using the computer or printer, these machines would instantly malfunction. As soon as I left the room, they would operate perfectly again! At the peak of her awakening, a woman told us her Kundalini voltage was strong enough to register on a compass; another was able to light an incandescent bulb simply by holding it in her hands. Paranormal incidents are commonly reported. In my case, a television repeatedly turned itself on full blast in the middle of the night. Electrical appliances and battery-operated toys may turn on and off or malfunction like a supernatural calling card from unseen gremlins or a movie scene announcing the landing of a UFO. (As weird as these things are when they occur, they generally fall short of Hollywood's hair-raising histrionics.)
Objects may crack, move or fall in the presence of Shakti. I went through a phase where whatever room I was in would make creaking, popping and other random noises for no apparent reason. One afternoon, I felt a sudden wild and emphatic throbbing in my spine. "Now what?" I thought, hoping this wasn't signaling some new physical disaster. After about 30 seconds, all this commotion in my spine stopped. I happened to turn on the TV and catch a news broadcast some while later, and it turned out that at the exact time I was feeling the throbbing in my spine, a moderate sized earthquake had struck in the region just east of us.
Vicki Noble had a similar synchronistic bodily manifestation as mine; a large boil developed on her back that she experienced as "a volcano needing to erupt." The day after she made this comment to her partner, "Mount St. Helens did erupt, and so did my boil!" When the Kundalini has sufficiently sensitized us, we discover, as Noble did, that we are one with the earth. And more than we realize, we are one with each other. I awoke the morning of April 19, 1995 feeling as if my body was full of shrapnel: I hurt all over. Later, I heard from others with awakened Kundalini who had similar stories. They had felt terrible on this day; some felt "irrationally" angry or sad; others felt as if they were suffocating, buried alive or psychically exploding. Our sudden painful symptoms and reactions did not make sense to us until we became aware of the Oklahoma bombing which occurred on this day.
Carl Jung, who underwent several years of profound spiritual emergence, also experienced extraordinary phenomena. Once, a series of uncanny phenomena occurred in his home, witnessed by family members. He said "it was as if my house began to be haunted. My eldest daughter saw a white figure passing through the room. My second daughter, independently of her elder sister, related that twice in the night her blanket had been snatched away." Later in the day, his "front door bell began ringing frantically," although no one was at the door. All these poltergeist-type activities stopped when Jung channeled his now famous mystical work, "The Seven Sermons of the Dead." Through our bodies and minds, we are receiving stations for inconceivably powerful forces and vast information about ourselves and our world. Although spirits may be involved in the production of some of these phenomena, these paranormal events seem more likely to happen in the presence of a person with a great deal of Shakti. Instead of regarding any of these phenomena as supernatural and frightening, I interpret them as signs of Lila, the majestic play of God. When the Shakti is strong in us, we are privy to more mysterious forms of this cosmic playfulness and interconnectedness. Sometimes, the phenomena also seem to be asking us to be more receptive, or to allow spiritual messages to come through, as in Jung's case. At other times, these things seem to be simply an awakening call -- a startling "Hello! I'm right here with you!" from an unexpected voice of the Universe.